January 28, 2004

Marty Wenzell

January 27, 2004

Jane Newman

Posted by Adelaide Horton:

My husband John and I have received an email from Jane Newman about her work in Africa. Jane, of course, was the President of the New York office and introduced the concept of Account Planning to the U.S.

Jane spends eight months out of every year in Africa. One of her many projects may be of particular interest to those ex-Chiat/Dayers who worked in the "virtual office." For only $1,000, Jane is able to create a school that actually travels with the tribe; a school complete with teacher, learning materials, and, most importantly, lunch.

Steve Alburty has posted the entire letter and all of the photos on his website.

January 23, 2004

Marty Wenzell flashmob

Soooo? Who went to the Flashmob last night and, more importantly, what happened and where are the digital photos I asked you to send of me so I could post them on this site? (I am in D.C., so I could not attend.) I'm depending on YOU, my JayDay cub reporters, to file some reports. Please click on the Comment link and post your memories of Re-Meeting Marty. If you have photos, email them to me at alburty@jayday.org and I will post them here next week.

January 22, 2004

Lunar New Year

Today is Lunar New Year, sometimes referred to as "Asian New Year." I'm staying with my amazing Korean American friend Terry Hong and her family in D.C. (Hi Gregor, Schuyler, and Jinwon!) In their honor, I present this link to a fascinating collection of photographs from Asia.

JAYDAY FLASHMOB!

One of C/D's finest party boys is going to be in New York this week. His appearance has inspired me to organize a FLASHMOB at the Old Town Bar so you can all swap stories with him over mass quantities of alcoholic beverages.

Come to Old Town on 18th Street, between Park Ave. South and Broadway, from 2 pm to about 6:30 pm. (Why the odd hours? Because our alum has to leave around 6:00 pm or so to go to a black-tie dinner.)

And who is this mystery alum? Well, if you worked at Chiat/Day from the late 70s to the mid-1980s, even hearing the name Marty Wenzell makes you just want to rush out and have a cocktail, doesn't it?

Yep, it's Marty! He now lives in San Francisco, where he works at Goodby, and where he has a wife and four, count 'em, four boys. (Marty was an account executive, by the way.)

Stop in this Thursday afternoon at Old Town and hoist a few for Auld Lang Jay. (And for God's sake, would somebody bring a digital camera and shoot some photos for posting on this site? I have to be in D.C., so I will miss the party, but I want to make sure it gets captured and posted on this website.)

Donnie Everett

There were many people who worked at Chiat/Day who had no specific job title. You may want to call them "Jay's Little Helpers." They purchased and arranged flowers, they shuttled art work, they ran errands, etc. Remember Rod Rhodes? Or Steve Klosterman? Or, the man pictured above - Donald Everett - who still wears his Chiat/Day t-shirts with pride. (That's a "Good Enough Is Not Enough" t-shirt on the left. He even posed in it for the photo on the right as a sort of mental plunger for our brains to help remind us of where we might have seen him the office!)

From 1993-1986, Donnie worked at 79 Fifth in the mailroom and purchased office supplies; but, says Donnie, "most people would remember me from being the domestic god. I CLEANED THE 4 and then THE 8 BATHROOMS among other things."

Donnie now lives in Boston and writes ...

Jay was one of the most amazing souls I have encountered in my life.
He always treated me with the dignity and respect that I wasn't always
sure I deserved. His example and that of many others at C/D has led me
to be as mindful of others humanity and to remember that it is by
example that we can make the world around us a little bit better place.
I have always remembered and continue to remember Jay as a kind,
caring, etc,,,, person but, what strikes me the most is how much an
effect one man can have on another's life without knowing it.

January 15, 2004

My protégés

I am teaching a creative writing "independent study" course with two earnest undergraduates from Duke University.

Meet Myra Hiott and Russelle Passino. They are in New York for the semester as part of a program from Duke called "Leadership in the Arts." Its premise: that the arts have much to teach us about ethics, judgment and personal choice.

The students spend virtually every evening seeing a play, musical, opera, concert, or dance; their days are spent visiting art galleries and museums, or in class, or working in independent study courses like mine.

(In 1999, I spent four months following 14 students in this same program as research for an article I wrote in Fast Company.)

I have no doubt that the words "by Myra Hiott and "by Russelle Passino" will be on a byline or a book cover one day.

Chris Zizelis

Do you remember the name Chris Zizelis? Probably not. He did not work for Chiat/Day, he worked for Al Bajaio, who was the contracter who built all of Chiat/Day NY's offices.

I received the greatest email from Chris the other day and I wanted to share it with you.

You guys were always the greatest and I think about my years spent there ('83-'91), all the time. Although I wasn't officially an employee there, you guys always made me feel like part of the "Family." I probably spent more time one on one with Jay than 99% of all employee's there, and my life is certainly richer because of that. It's great to see that so many people realize what a special place Chiat/Day was during the '80's. My years there will always be some of the best of my life. I doubt most people would remember me there, but if I ever come up in conversation, give my regards.

I hereby dub Chris to be an honorary ex-employee of Chiat/Day and have added him to the official Lost and Found page!

January 12, 2004

Andy Law

Today is the first official working day at a new ad agency in London called boymeetsgirlsj. Or is it typed boymeetsgirl? How do you spell it if you can't do that little uplifty thing at the end?

Well, at least I can say that no matter how it's typed, I'm sure it's fascinating, because it has been founded by Andy Law. Andy was the head of Chiat/Day's London office, and then went off to found St. Luke's, which I wrote about in Fast Company.

Vernacular churches

Claudette Chambrun Goux, a graduate art history student at University of California, Riverside, takes photo of small buildings devoted to prayer in the inner-city neighborhoods of Houston and Los Angeles. They are not churches, in the traditional sense of the word. They are "vernacular" churches, humble buildings transformed by a simple cross or steeple.

January 07, 2004

TBWA Chiat/Day Exec Indicted

A federal indictment has been leveled against the director of finance at Ogilvy & Mather, Thomas Early, and a former O&M Senior Partner, Shona Seifert, who is currently the President of TBWA Chiat/Day's New York office. The Associated Press says Seifert's lawyer is Gregory Craig, who represented President Clinton during his impeachment trial.

NEW YORK - A senior executive at the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency's New York office has stepped down after being charged with conspiracy for allegedly overbilling the federal government for a public service campaign against drugs.

Thomas Early, 48, director of finance at Ogilvy's New York office, and Shona Seifert, who once directed Ogilvy's $684 million contract with the government, were accused Tuesday in a federal indictment with directing employees to exaggerate their work on the project when they filled out time sheets.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said Early resigned "in order to devote his full energies to obtaining a full vindication in this matter."

Seifert left the agency two years ago, and now works at another agency. She has also denied any wrongdoing.

Early and Seifert each pleaded innocent Wednesday at a brief hearing in Manhattan federal court. A judge set their bond at $500,000 each and ordered each to put up $25,000 in collateral.

Early and Seifert will return to court for a pre-trial hearing Feb. 13. Attorneys for both declined comment.

Seifert's lawyer is Gregory Craig, who represented President Clinton during his impeachment trial. Craig later represented Juan Miguel Gonzalez, father of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban castaway boy at the center of an international custody dispute in 2000.

Early and Seifert allegedly caused the company to submit false vouchers to the government to support inflated labor costs, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The overbilling occurred as the agency worked on a national media campaign for the Office of the National Drug Control Policy, a branch of the executive office of the U.S. president, the government said.

Ogilvy was awarded a contract in December 1998 to create a print and broadcast campaign to discourage drug use among the nation's young people by educating them about the dangers of illegal drugs. The campaign continued until last week.

Laurence Urgenson, a lawyer for Early, had said on Tuesday, "Sometimes the government gets it wrong. We believe that this is such a case. We fully expect that Tom Early will be completely vindicated."

Seifert, now president of TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, said Tuesday: "Neither with respect to the indictment announced by the U.S. attorney's office nor at any other time in my life have I ever committed any criminal misdeed of any nature."

If convicted, each could face up to five years in prison on each of 11 counts in the indictment and millions of dollars in fines.

Ogilvy, which was not charged, said it was unprepared for complex and unique federal recordkeeping rules when it first signed the contract but changed its procedures when it realized it was not meeting federal requirements.

The agency said it stopped billing the government in the summer of 2000 until its recordkeeping system was changed, billing missteps were disclosed and the government was overcompensated in a civil settlement.

After its new system was certified by outside and government auditors, Ogilvy "instituted the most rigorous accounting compliance program in our industry," the agency said.

January 05, 2004

More alums found

They're coming out of the electronic woodworks, folks!

Welcome to Nancy Kane ("I worked at Chiat Day in the Dallas office from ’89 to ’92 in account service on the Nissan business. It was my first job out of college and what a great first professional advertising experience.")

Melford Mcrae ("i just want to say i exsist... lol. I worked in the NY office from 93 to 99 in the Production Dept under Andrew Chinich. I would love to be included in this list I haven't worked with a better group of people since. My name is Melford Mcrae everyone called me junior.")

Peggy Lochmann ("I worked at the Chiat/Day office in LA from 85-89. It is great to learn what everyone is now doing. FYI, I'm working on the client side, for Intel in N. California.")

And on New Year's Eve, who should I run into at the Whole Foods in Chelsea but Steve Cohen, who worked for Perkins/Butler, our direct marketing division. And he said that just minutes before running into me, he was on the phone with Bill Butler himself!

Cameron Davidson

Cameron Davidson is an award-winning freelance photographer who
specializes in aerial imagery. In Davidson's lens, a simple curve of a road in Southern Maryland becomes hypnotic and forboding. Don't miss the field notes, in which Davidson reveals how he got these amazing shots.

Guess the alum

Still don't know??? Then click on "Continue reading ...." to see the answer!

It's Scot Blakeley! And he's in Canada!

Here's Scot in his own words ...

I started as a freelance mechanical artist (remember them?) at Chiat/Day NY in '87, became Studio Manager and left in '91. It was a time when New Business planners (Nelan Tyree) could walk around in DAISY DUKES Mini shorts and Rolling Rocks were abundant!

The 90's were very busy for me. From '91 - '98 I continued my career at such places as Burkhart & Christie, Studio Manager, George Lois USA, Director of Print Operations and McCann Erickson, Production Operations). In '97 I ventured into Public Relations at Ruder/Finn as Director Of Print Production and Design. It was quite different and the change was exciting for me. I knew my ad days were over and I could go home at a decent time and make that meatloaf I always wanted to!

At the end of 98 while on a trip to Montreal for New Years Eve party, I met the person of my life. Eventually we had to decide "Did we want to stay in NY and pay $2,400 for a 3 1/2 or stay in Montreal and pay $600 CAD ($400 US at the time) for a 9 1/2 with finished basement, front and back patio, a car and be in the heart of Montreal???
Needless to say I have been living here ever since.

Through working with my husband (yes, here in Canada we're allowed to say that!) I was able to transform my career into working on film productions and photo shoots as a set designer. Very exciting and fun work. Speaking of fun work...for the past three years I have been working with Mattel as a mini set designer/builder for their Trade Shows for.....BARBIE! 182 sets, 3 times a year! Thats busy! I always knew that someday, playing with dolls would be ok!

Recently I was offered a position in the Advertising/marketing Division of DIESEL (jeans) CANADA and accepted this amazing opportunity. I start on January 4th and look forward to my new found home, career and life here in Canada.

P.S. I maintain my American citizenship. I am living and working here as a legal resident.